Digital story encourages unemployed people to learn new skills
06/04/2006
A 'digital story' featuring children with disabilities riding on rocket-shaped scooter boards is motivating long term unemployed people to learn carpentry skills.
Created with multimedia tools, digital stories can comprise photographs, video footage, music, sound and text.
Trade trainers are being given the technological skills to create these digital stories through the national training system's e-learning strategy, the 2005 -2006 Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework).
The Framework's LearnScope e-learning and e-business professional development project demonstrated various e-learning tools to the trainers at not-for-profit training organisation Hunter Workways, based in the Lower Hunter region of New South Wales.
This enabled Hunter Workways to set up the LearnScope Tango Traders project, in which trainers created digital stories to introduce new students to their trade at the start of their training program.
Martyn Leist trains groups of long term unemployed people in carpentry skills through the Work for the Dole program. His team custom-make wooden support aids and educational equipment for children with disabilities.
He created a digital story to introduce new learners to the outcomes of his classes. The digital story covered the carpentry workshop, woodwork tools, the types of equipment students would be making and the children they would be helping.
Among the projects the team have worked on are: scooter boards for developing upper-body strength and joint stability; 'sit and spinners' to encourage the use of two hands and planning upper limb movements; slope boards to encourage better trunk posture, increased wrist extension and the activation of vital hand muscles; sensory boards for tactile stimulation.
Martyn said: "Digital stories are a fantastic way to introduce the guys to our project and show them the impact it has on the children. A picture tells a thousand words and I used 21 pictures to create my digital story. The pictures of the kids using the equipment we build is really motivating."
Until he took part in the LearnScope Tango Traders project, Martyn was a self-confessed technophobe.
"I could just about manage email and the Internet but most of the guys I train are great on computers," said Martyn. "I needed to introduce e-learning so they could relate to the project and LearnScope has enabled me to do this. The guys might not have ever picked up a hammer but through a digital story they could see the end result of using a hammer. The look on a kid's face when they see something we have created for them is amazing."
Hunter Workways focuses on developing skills for unemployed people in trades where there is a shortage, such as carpentry, landscaping and electronics.
Project manager Janelle Hollis said: "The confidence the LearnScope Tango Traders project gave our trainers was amazing. It increased their own capacity to use different media, which has enabled them to engage their students."
Hunter Workways worked closely with the New South Wales LearnScope Manager Robyn Jay on the digital storytelling project.
Robyn said: "Digital stories are short and engaging, quick and easy to create, and offer a human element. Audiences immediately connect with a good digital story and, such as the case with the Tango Traders project, feel inspired about the project.
"Without fail teachers find the methodology immediately appealing, accessible and useful for supporting learners."
For more information about LearnScope visit:
